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I think Holinka is doing a great job. This is just the first season of WoD, and I think s16 is infinitely better than s5, s9 and s12. You can see Blizzard is doing a better job of making changes earlier on to tweak PvP. Hotfixes are being rolled out multiple times per week. What you have to remember is that WoW is a PvE game, and most of the damage/healing numbers will be based on PvE performance, which Holinka doesn't have control of. As previous posters have pointed out, PvP balancing really can't reach its full potential until they separate the functionality of abilities in PvP and PvE.

Official Blizzard Quote:

As many of you reported, at the launch of Warlords of Draenor, there were a few issues that allowed players access to Conquest gear prematurely. Conquest Points (and in some cases, actual pieces of Conquest gear) were being rewarded from various locations, including Ashran, despite there being no active PvP season.

We’ve now corrected those issues, and no more Conquest points are being earned or Conquest gear being awarded. However, to preserve the integrity of the upcoming PvP season, we need to do something about the Conquest points and gear that some players were already able to acquire.

So, before Warlords Season 1 begins on December 2nd, we’ll be converting any remaining Conquest points into Honor, similar to the end-of-season conversions we’ve done in the past. Any excess Honor over the 4000-point cap will be converted into gold at 35 silver per Honor. Any existing Primal Gladiator’s (Conquest) gear will be converted into its corresponding Primal Combatant’s (Honor) counterpart.

We apologize for the confusion that these issues have caused, but are looking forward to a clean start to the PvP season on December 2nd.

As many are blind to the gloriousness that is gladiator stance prot, I decided to create a guide to save my fellow warriors from certain frustration. Here's to those who charge blamelessly into arena with their futile specializations that result in their imminent demise; may they soon respec at the graveyard.

Overview

Gladiator stance is our new level 100 talent introduced in WoD. It allows us to play prot, but in a more DPS focused roll. By taking the talent, we give up the stamina bonus from prot as well as the ability to use defensive stance. Luckily, all our spells don’t have stance requirements. We retain the simple spell rotation that once resembled MoP arms, and gain even more defensive cool downs. The only downside is no MS, but MS has been irrelevent for a very long time now.

Unfortunately you won't be using this talent, and as such gain the armor, stamina, and damage reduction bonus.

Rotation and abilities

Sit in defensive stance 24/7, do not enter battle stance under any circumstance as it's pointless.

Fortunately our abilities are very straight forward. They all just do damage, with very little actual thinking involved. Some abilities will reset the CD of others, but that's as deep as it goes.

Execute > Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate

As the only abilities that cost rage are Hamstring, Heroic Strike, and Shield Barrier you can just mash Heroic Strike 24/7 without a care in the world unless you're hanging on to life by a thread and need to spam barrier. Avoid being rage capped unless you are setting up a significant burst opportunity. Use heroic strike procs as they happen.

As we are prot, our thunderclaps are free, have a ~5.5 second CD, slow, and spread deep wounds. Spam that shit like no other and you'll rot the enemy as if you were arms.

Talents

Ah, talents. So many choices, how shall I ever choose!?!

I wish. Warriors have some of the worst talent choices in the game at the moment, especially as arms and fury. Prot is nearly as bad, except our talent choices are actually useful sometimes.

Tier One

Our mobility is absolutely horrendous at the moment, and after playing a bunch of games I've come to a couple of conclusions.

#1 - Use double time against mages (along with rude interruption glyph)
#2 - Use Warbringer against everything else (along with blitz glyph if double melee)

With so many classes having freedom, we simply cannot use anything else then stun. Sure, it hurts our mobility but the utility that the stun brings is just so important at the moment.

Against mages I recomend going double time, as you need it to deal with both blazing speed and blink; along with any random novas you'll find yourself in. It can be used again ferals as well, but honestly the charge stun is still very important against them. Don't even think about using double time against ret teams. Ever.

Tier Two

With the nerf to second wind, the only option has become enraged regeneration. Luckily it no longer requires to be enraged for the full effect, and with battle fatigue gone it’s pretty damn reliable.

Fun fact: Enraged Regen and Last Stand scale directly with health. If you’re using battle shout, swap over to command before using these two abilities in order to maximize their effects.

Fun fact #2: Last stand is different from rallying cry in that unlike cry, you do not lose the health once the effect ends. It’s essentially a free 100k+/- heal.

Tier Three

Execute does not scale with rage as prot, and as such the sudden death proc is a full damage execute, which hits the hardest out of all your abilites, even after the nerf.

Unyielding Strikes is in a strange situation. Anger Management is every thirty rage, however it seems to be ignoring unyielding strikes. In other words, your near free heroic strikes are reducing CDs by second each time, regardless of how much rage they cost. This can lead to very impressive CD timers, and may easily push it over SD in raw damage output. Not too sure if this is bugged or intended.

But again this depends on what comp you're running into, as warriors we have absolutely atrocious mobility and the stacks from unyielding will constantly fall off if you're not careful, while the RPPM (Random Procs per Minute) from sudden death will cause them to proc asoon as you actually can smack something again

As we aren't using Gladiator stance, Heavy Repercussions isn't even worth considering.

Tier Four

One of the significant changes from MoP is now Storm Bolt and Shockwave are on the same tier. This choice will really be up to which comp you play. Storm Bolt may seem better as it’s a ranged, 30 sec stun, but the skill cap for it is much lower. Getting a triple Shockwave is huge in a game, and it will also reduce the CD to 20 seconds, which is obviously shorter then Storm Bolt.

If you’re playing with a Hunter and you need some help landing those ranged traps, then take bolt. However, if you’re playing double time you can charge someone, drop a shockwave, then charge back as well. This would leave you with shockwave in case a big opportunity presented itself for some big plays.

One thing to note is both abilities scale with Anger Management. As you spam rage so quickly as prot via heroic strike, you will find yourself with 18 second CD stormbolts, and around 12 second shockwaves if you hit three targets. You can very easily DR your own stuns to immunity with this, so be aware.

Tier Five

With the nerf to Safeguard it is no longer our go-to talent. What you will take will be dependent on which comp you are up against.

MSR is great for those dirty wizards spamming CC, or that sense of mind that you can reflect that CC regardless of who the enemy is targeting. Reflecting the 12 second PoM sheep that is hunter trap is an amazing feeling. MSR now replaces spell reflect, and with the CD at 30 seconds you really need to understand when to use it.

Safeguard is good for those who like to train the blue all game. It’s a consistent 20% damage reduction every 30 seconds. Be aware most of the time you'll be stuck in a root while your partner dies, so it may be worthless.

Vigilance is good when you’re up against something like ret/priest/hunt where their entire kill window comes in short windows every couple of minutes.

As RMD is everywhere and I play with a blue I run Safeguard, as it's also infinitely more useful again the rediculious amount of melee cleaves at the moment. I usually only go MSR againt hunter teams, and sometimes I don't even bother as I find myself rooted out of range so often it's pointless.

Tier Six

As we're running Anger Management, neither ability sync's up with the now 2min CD on use trinket very well. With the 1.5min Avatar change it's hard pressed to find a situation where bloodbath would be better, but it has its uses against teams that kite you hard. Bloodbath is constantly a 40 second CD without unyielding strikes, and could easily be even lower with it. Avatar hovers around a one minute CD depending on uptime.

Regardless of the comp, one minute avatar is pretty hard to argue against.

Heroic Leap: The old 4pc bonus. When you leap, you gain a 70% sprint for three seconds.

Options:

Blitz: For triple stun/root action.

Rude Interruption: Since you'll be training casters often, this is a fun choice. How dare they try to cast. I run this most of the time, as there are plenty of oppertunities to get the bonus damage unless you're facing a double melee, in which case go blitz if needed.

WoD did a significant number of racial tweaks this time around. Recently the PvP trinkets were nerfed making Human a much weaker choice compared to before, and then they were buffed immensely in 6.1. In other words, go human.

Horde racials were nerfed into oblivion. The entire faction is unviable from a competitive standpoint. Here’s to hoping the NA community picks up on the EU way of life and everyone goes to the significantly superior Alliance.

If you become frustrated from sitting in roots all day, and you’re not playing with a Paladin, then just go Gnome. You’ll lose a significant damage bonus, but the 1minute escape artist is just so much fun.

Bonus armor items first. Then trinkets. Then follow the biggest score difference. Legs, then waist, etc. Use the vers/mastery legs as your off-piece mainset as it gives the biggest stat allocation.

Use the 680 legendary bonus armor ring as your second ring and upgrade it to 690 when possible.

If you are in a mythic raiding group, any 690+ gear that has a better stat allocation is preferred if at all possible as long as it does not break your set bonus.

Ironicly, all the set bonus pieces give the absolute lowest stat values except for the shoulders. This mean that late into the season, you'll want to have two sets of gear. One with the 4pc set for when you're being trained and get the free rage, and one running only 2pc for the extra stats in games where you're not trained.

Stat Priority

Bonus Armor = STR > Vers > Mastery > Crit > Haste > Multi

1 STR = 1 Bonus Armor. They both give 1 AP per point, except bonus armor gives % physical damage reduction which makes it a little better in a PvP setting. However, we do have a 5% str bonus passive, which means that it's a toss up if you want the very slight extra damage, or the much bigger physical damage reduction.

There's a couple pieces of offset that have bonus armor, so be sure to grab those as it's essentially bonus strength. Flat Str/AP increases are very noticable post stat squish.

These stat weights are based off the 50% nerf to crit & multistrike in PvP. It also reduces haste as there are significant periods of time where we're simply being kited.

Suck it arms/fury, we still have banner intervene. This macro will not drop your target, nor randomly bug out and target random people. It is –the- best banner macro you can have, bar none.

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus] Charge
/cast [@focus] Pummel

Space saving macro, will charge/pummel your focus depending on range. This works due to charge’s minimum range requirement.

#showtooltip Charge
/cast [harm] Charge; [help] Intervene

Charge and intervene in one macro. It’s convenient when some random pet is following the enemy if you don’t have anything else over there to charge/intervene, and using the fast intervene macro would be unwise.

Macroing taunt into your main abilities will piss a lot of pet classes off. Really brainless but has led to plenty of pet kills in my time.

Wrap Up

Prot is insanely strong ok. Border-line overpowered good. I’ve been toying around with in for the last five months on beta, and it is the go-to an alright spec. You do twice the damage, twice the utility, and die twice as slow.

You will run kitty cleave, WLD, TSG, ATC, or any other melee cleave and enjoy it. The enemy team will become truculent the second you connect. Mainly due to the fact that they can't kill you. You are what Blizzard wanted; the result of turning our favorite spec into unplayability, followed by nerfing the your other spec, and finally resigning to simply do what they wanted and become god incarnate a walking blob while having fun.

Hello. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a 9x titled, 2900 experienced Shadow Priest who quit in Cataclysm and returned in S15 for casual play in preparation for WoD, where I intend to play full time again. I also have 3x Glad titles as a Warlock, and I used to be a really bad Rogue ( :) ). Most of my time I've spent on Stormscale ( old EU-Cyclone ) and Frostwhisper ( old EU-Rampage ), and after S7 I've resided on Kor'gall ( EU-Cruelty ), which turned into a massive battlegroup due to massive transfers in S8/S9 to a guild I was the GM of. I've been playing a Shadow Priest on both live and beta extensively these past few weeks, and I'm excited for what WoD is bringing to the table, both Shadow Priest wise and in general.

- Psychic Scream is now a talent, replacing MoP's Psyfiend ( good riddance ). Also now has a 6 second duration and a 45 second cooldown, belongs to DISORIENT DR category and DRs with plenty of other CCs ( more on that later )

Talents have been rearranged, and 3 new talents have been added for level 100.

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Tier 1 used to be the CC tier, now it's the defensive tier. The options are clear, a 22% instant cast heal on a 2 minute cooldown, a in-combat Stealth on 30 second cooldown, or a Priest variation of Cheat Death that yields a shield.

The choice falls down on you, the player, but in most situations, Spectral Guise is a clear winner. Not only does it allow you to do things you couldn't do otherwise ( sometimes avoid Rogue/Mage/x openers, have a unpredictable opener yourself, etc ), but Shielding yourself and Spectral Guising will usually net your healer more time to pick you up, resulting in a bigger effective defensive ability than both of the other talents combined. However, they do have a situational use and I'm sure some players won and will win games thanks to them, but those are rare and situational at best.

Verdict : take Spectral Guise

Edit : 12/04/2015 ( patch 6.1.2 ): I've started using Angelic Bulwark versus certain comps. Spectral Guise is still the best talent in this tier if you can properly use it, however versus certain comps ( jungle comes to mind ), you'll be permamently faerie swarmed and won't be able to get maybe even a second out of Spectral Guise. Again, Spectral Guise IS _THE_ talent to use in this tier, however, as I've said, Angelic Bulwark CAN work versus some compositions.

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The mobility tier. You have a choice between a talent that increases your speed when you shield yourself, a talent which lets you drop Feathers on the ground for use by both you and your team mates, or Phantasm, a root+snare remover and mini-freedom.

Body and Soul immediately goes out of the picture, when there's a superior talent present ( Angelic Feather ). The choice boils down between Feather and Phantasm. Angelic Feather got nerfed to 60% in 6.0.0 - before the patch, you could Angelic Feather yourself while slowed with Crippling Poison/Hamstring/etc, and Angelic Feather and whatever snare effect you had on yourself would cancel out, meaning that you'd move at your usual movement speed ( 100% ) - however that's not the case anymore with Feather's nerf to 60%, meaning that Phantasm will once again play a role as a viable talent.

Verdict : completely up to you, as long as you ignore Body and Soul. Feathers will be the superior choice if you play with classes that can provide you with the Blessing of Freedom effect ( immunity to slows and roots ), while Phantasm will find its use in comps which do not provide you with said effect. Pick depending what comp you are running and what comp you're facing.

p.s. Angelic Feather into Spectral Guise is still a thing, happy fearing people

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Single target damage tier. All three talents feel viable unlike in previous expansion, and your choice will boil down to what comp you're playing, what comp you're facing and your own personal preference.

Surge of Darkness now has a chance to proc off both Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague, and can now accumulate up to 3 charges ( up from 2 ), which is a pretty decent buff. Mindbender provides your Shadowfiend with the ability to restore mana ( ordinary Shadowfiend does not do that anymore ), and a bit of extra damage on a lower cooldown. Insanity now procs from any Shadow Orbs consuming mechanic, and uses the 2 sec/shadow orb consumed formula to determine the buff duration, during which your Mind Flay deals extra 100% damage.

There's no clear winner here. All three are viable, and you can't go wrong. However, due to the nature of the game come WoD, where instant casts are highly favoured ( due to the melee nature of the game ), Surge of Darkness and Mindbender feel a little bit better than Insanity, as I haven't found myself in too many situations where I've been able to sit and freecast.

Entirely up to you.

Edit : 08/12/2014 : Insanity is plainly not viable in arena. Surge of Darkness or Mindbender. Mindbender is a liability because of possibility of him being CC'd by aoe CC such as howl etc. during your burst sequence, but I've found Surge of Darkness procs just going into my ordinary rotation and not being extra helpful during kill sequences.

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The CC tier. Recieved the most overhaul with removal of Psyfiend ( and subsequent addition of Psychic Scream, /sigh @ Blizzard )

Void Tendrils still root the target until they're killed, but now have the added effect of breaking on target damage too. Psychic Scream has been nerfed to 45 second cooldown, and now lasts 6 seconds instead of 8 ( now lines up perfectly with your Silence though, meaning landed Fears will actually be more scarier for the enemy team as you'll always be able to Fear into Silence ). Dominate Mind is unchanged.

You'll pick Psychic Scream in 90% of situations. You are pidgeonholed into playing with Psychic Scream as long as you're playing with partners that don't have access to disorient CC category themselves. The other 10% of time, you'll be playing with someone the likes of a Warlock, meaning that, depending on Warlocks own choices, you'll be able to play with Void Tendrils instead.

Edit : 08/12/2014: There are situations where you can pick tendrils over Scream when playing with a druid. Other than that, the above largely remains unaltered.

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Second damage tier.

Twist of Fate is pretty bad in arena ( very decent in rated bgs though ), whereas Power Infusion and Shadowy Insight are in a collision here, arena wise.

Power Infusion is very very powerful paired with the new Insanity talent. However, as I've already said, chances of you being allowed to freecast whenever you want versus anyone decent are slim to none, whereas Shadowy Insight got buffed and now has a chance to proc off Mind Spike as well, having a clear synergy with Surge of Darkness from tier 3.

Choice is between Power Infusion and Shadowy Insight. It's entirely up to you, again. I prefer Shadowy Insight, although I've grown to not care about it due to Clarity of Power ( level 100 talent, explained a few tiers below ), so I've been meddling with Power Infusion lately. I like both, feels more like a flavour choice than anything. Your call.

Edit : 08/12/2014: Shadowy insight is garbage, Power Infusion is situational. Right now, if you're playing Godcomp or RPD, you're setting up 100-0 kills in CC, making Twist of Fate a really good talent because it makes you hit like a truck after people drop below 35%. Mindblast, Devouring Plague, 2x SWD = a target is dead unless you get CC'd, they're under cooldowns or they're outranging/LoSing you.

Edit : 12/04/2015 ( patch 6.1.2 ): Twist of Fate is your default go-to choice in arenas. For RBGs you have two choices. Obvious one is, again, Twist of Fate - you can almost permamently keep it up. Other choice is Shadowy Insight - you'll be drowning in orbs from Auspicious Spirits ( last talent tier ), however Shadowy Insight can find its use. Personal preference.

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Aoe damage tier.

The biggest change in this tier has been the removal of healing on all of the spells.

Cascade is still a pretty bad choice ( again, same deal as with Twisted Fate - it's awful for arena, but pretty insane in rated BGs ), pitting you between Divine Star and Halo. Both talents still break CC ( or at least did few days ago when I've tested ), with Halo doing more damage but being less controllable, to Divine Star doing less damage but being more controllable ( also breaks enemy stealth/invis, unlike Halo ).

Up to you. Can't go wrong with both, but as much as I like Halo, I still pick Divine Star more often. The positive side of picking Halo before was the healing effect, as it could crit up 100k+ if cast from maximum range. Seeing it does not do that anymore, Divine Star seems like the logical choice most of the time. It's more controllable and castable more often, breaks stealth, etc.

Edit : 08/12/2014 : Halo.

Edit : 12/04/2015 ( patch 6.1.2 ): Use Divine Star for arena ( entire talent tier is super underwhelming, and with Divine Star, you can at least use it when there are CC'd targets near you ), and use Cascade in RBGs.

Edit : 07/07/2015 ( patch 6.2.0 ): Cascade is now usable in arena due to gear upgrades and other factors - it provides a healthy DPS increase compared to Halo. Use it when people start to stack up, and multidot for extra pressure when nothing's going on ( PH and Silence on cooldown, you know for sure that you can't make anything happen, etc ). It wasn't a super effective tactic in 6.1, and it's only slightly better in 6.2, but whatever, anything helps. TL;DR - You can run with Cascade all the time in 3s.

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Level 100 talents tier.

Your choice here will lie between Clarity of Power and Auspicious Spirits. Void Entropy has been an absolute garbage of a DoT so far, both in PvE testing and PvP gameplay.

Auspicious Spirits will potentially work in a combo such as Shadowplay, where you want to spread your damage and simply PvE. It synergizes extremely well with all talents as well ( both Surge of Darkness+Shadowy Insight and Insanity+Power Infusion work very very well )

However, clear winner of this tier is Clarity of Power. It basically defines Shadow Priests on level 100 in PvP, and makes them into a great spec they feel like on beta right now. Insant Mind Blast on a 3 second lower cooldown is HUGE, and 40% extra damage on swaps is also huge. Storing Spike Charges and making a quick swap proved very deadly on beta, especially with Horror Orb regeneration effect from 4set PvP bonus.

You'll want to take CoP in almost every instance possible, clear winner.

- Glyph of Delayed Coalescence - I've found a lot of uses for this Glyph, as it pretty much allowed me to survive situations where I would've otherwise died ( shield - 9 seconds dispersion when shield gets broken - weakened soul expires 1 second after Dispersion ends with this glyph; shield again , only to mention a possible use; your healer will love this glyph because with the removal of all the CC from the game, people won't randomly toss around CC and just go ultra aggressive whenever they feel like it, they'll start CC chains more properly and it'll be harder to avoid some than before - this glyph is designed for such situations, where you can't count on your healer for 10+ seconds )

- Glyph of Free Action - old Shadow PvP set bonus, nerfed from 60% to 30%. Might find uses, but seeing you can simply Angelic Feather into Dispersion in most situations, this is a flavour choice

- Glyph of Mind Harvest - currently really good on live 2s, however I don't see much use outside of it. On 100, Clarity of Power takes care of orb generation, and as such, having 6 second extra cooldown on Mind Blast during the entire arena game for a better opener really isn't worth it ( outside of very quick 3s games, I've found it useful versus triple melee teams )

- Glyph of Restored Faith - the best thing added in the expansion. This allows you many plays otherwise impossible, and allows you to have an upper hand on melee teams ( that will be quite prevalent in WoD ). Must have.

- Glyph of Silence - Before I mention what I found about this Glyph, keep in mind that Psychic Scream is now a 45 second cooldown ( gg Blizzard ... ), the EXACT same cooldown as unglyphed Silence. This allows you to line up EVERY Psychic Scream together with a Silence, I don't even need to tell you how powerful that is. However, this Glyph can still be good. A 3 second duration Silence on a 20 second cooldown ? This will be VERY good if you're playing a comp with CONSISTENT pressure, and it'll make enemies sweat if you have kill opportunity windows that DO NOT rely on you landing Psychic Screams - in such situation, this Glyph is amazing.

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The following are the glyphs you'll find yourself using in arena :

- Glyph of Fade - it's still very useful in WoD, however, unlike in MoP, there are other viable contenders for its spot

- Glyph of Mind Blast - your hidden trump card. We'll have a pretty decent amount of crit in WoD, and a 4 second root on Mind Blast crit ( extra synergy with Shadowy Insight+Clarity of Power ) is something that will be very very good against melee teams

- Glyph of Psychic Horror - allows you to use your Psychic Horror spell more often. Considering Psychic Horror now refunds your Shadow Orbs used on the spell itself, this became a very viable and decent option. Might see people stacking this Glyph with Glyph of Silence, because our only CC has been nerfed from 23 sec cooldown to 45 second cooldown.

- Glyph of Delayed Coalescence - no explanation needed here, if a certain team has a tendency to create a huge lockdown on your healer, this proved very useful

- Glyph of Restored Faith - in my opinion, a must have - it's a Priest version of Warlock and Monk portal; Mage Blink, etc.

- Glyph of Silence - situational at best, but in a world where all 3 of your CC spells are 45 second cooldown, might prove very good in comps that have high pressure and have kill opportunity window open often

- Glyph of Weakened Soul - seeing it stacks with the leveling perk, you'll get 8 second cooldown shields. PWS isn't all that amazing, but it's still a very useful spell, especially with the removal of Renew - this allows you to be of extra help to your team mates when they need it

There's no clear verdict on the Glyph situation, however it seems that Glyph of Restored Faith will be a FOTM choice, whereas other Glyphs will be used by personal preference. I myself rolled with Restored Faith/Mind Blast/Glyph of Weakened Soul, and swapped Weakened Soul with Mass Dispel when versus teams with immunities; I've seen other Shadows roll with different setups, all seemed to work. Only constant was : Glyph of Restored Faith.

Edit : 08/12/2014: Glyph of Restored Faith is useful only on Z axis maps versus melee trains, otherwise it's better to have the default ability for your Rogue/Mage/Druid partner ( it's a safe bet to take the glyph versus Rogue teams btw, especially stuff like RMP or RMD that insist on training you to the ground ) you. Typically, roll with Psychic Horror, Fade and Mass Dispel. Swap Mass Dispel out for something else if you're not facing anything with a immunity magic debuff, I like to take Reflective Shield or Weakened Soul, depending what I'm facing.

You ALWAYS want to have Fade and Psychic Horror glyphs, the only glyph slot you'll be rolling around with will be Mass Dispel.

Versus RMD, swap to short Silence glyph.

Versus junglecleaves that like to train you, either swap to Dispersion ( 15 sec less on Dispersion ), or swap to Reflective Shield/Weakened Soul, whatever you think is more beneficial. If we're training the Feral, I almost always take Reflective Shield.

Versus turbo cleave, you can potentially swap to Psychic Scream glyph to make enemy Monk/Paladin stand in place, for your Mage to have an easier time landing sheeps, because fear can randomly fear someone to Africa and completely ruin your setup.

Anyway, as I've said, that 3rd glyph slot is modular. You can't expect to get reliable offensive dispels ( block, dark bargain ( if anyone even uses that ), bubble ), and you can't expect to get reliable defensive dispels ( cyclone ) that warrant this glyph. You might, you might not. Modular glyph slot, as already said.

( I've excluded the 6 abilites ( Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word : Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Devouring Plague, Shadow Word : Death ) found in "Core Abilities" section of your Shadow Priests spell book - they're sufficiently explained there - the only thing I'll mention is that Devouring Plague is recommended to be used "on CD" ( aka, every 3 Orbs built ) - however that's not the case in PvP. You need have a "feeling" when it's fine to use Devouring Plague and when you should simply save the Orbs, either for DP or for Horror - this comes naturally as you play the spec more )

- Dispel Magic - Removes 1 magic effect from enemies. One of best abilities we have, use it to strip down Resto Druid HoTs, Priest shields, beneficial buffs, etc - it has a limited use compared to how it used to be before, but it's still one of best spells in Shadow Priest's arsenal

- Dispersion - your "oh crap" button. Use when absolutely necessary, you want to delay using this ability as much as possible, because if you manage to save it when enemy team blew their cooldowns, it creates huge pressure on them. No longer restores mana, therefore only used when you need to mitigate damage.

- Fade - useless, unless you're using Fade glyph.

- Fear Ward - target this is placed on negates one Fear effect on them. Seeing this is Dispellable ( and more importantly, Spellstealable ), try to not pre-buff it, and instead cast it when you need it.

- Flash Heal - your healing spell. Not exactly super effective, but great when you need to help out on healing.

- Leap of Faith - this spell has two uses, depending on what glyphs you use. If you use no Glyphs, it pulls your partner to you. If you use Glyph of Restored Faith, it pulls yourself to your party/raid target. Both instances have great uses.

- Mass Dispel - very useful, even without Glyph. It dispels negative effects on your partners, allowing you to dispel a sheep/trap/etc every 15 seconds.

- Mind Sear - not used in arena for most part, except for keeping people behind a pillar in combat, or trying to stop a stealthed opener/trying to keep a stealther from stealthing.

- Mind Spike - used when you're locked on your Shadow school, or when Surge of Darkness procs

- Power Word : Fortitude - self explanatory.

- Power Word : Shield - spammed on cooldown in tight situations

- Prayer of Mending - used to be great, not so much with added casting time. Not useful unless facing a Death Knight or a Warlock team, where it'll bounce a lot.

- Psychic Horror - extremely useful spell - you'll be spamming this on cooldown if the opportunities present themselves, especially because it refunds 3 Shadow Orbs in 9 seconds after its usage

- Psychic Scream - I realise that this is a talent, but you'll be using it in 90% of cases, as it's your pidgeonholed talent choice ( extremely poor decision by Blizzard to put a core spell as a talent, and then to nerf it to the extreme as well ). You'll be using it on cooldown to create CC chains, both with your partners and on your own ( Psychic Horror and Silence )

- Shackle Undead - warrants a bind because of Death Knights. Shackle empowered Death Knight pets ( abominations ), and shackle gargoyles, it's more than worth the global.

- Shadowfiend - now a DPS cooldown. Pop it when you need extra damage during kill attempts.

- Silence - prevents enemy from casting for 5 seconds. Extremely versatile uses, and not only on healers - if you have a healer in CC and you're going for a kill on the DPS, you can use Silence to prevent Touch of Karma*/Diffuse Magic from Monks, or prevent Anti Magic Shell from Death Knights, the list goes on. You'll be using this in conjecture with your other CC spells to create CC chains that, in return, create kills ( or draw loads of cooldowns from enemy team ). Your most useful spell.

Humans remain the best choice when it comes to damage. You're still able to equip two PvP damage trinkets while keeping the PvP trinket ability ( Human racial ), providing you with the most damage in PvP out of every other Priest race in the game. However, it depends on quality of available trinkets, and is not worth being a Human if trinkets are not really good.

- Dwarf

Dwarves became a viable choice with the Stoneform buff. It removes all poison, disease, curse, magic and bleed effects, and reduces physical damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds, all of that on a two minute cooldown. They're, as it stands, the best defensive race in the game that Shadow Priests have. This talent is great versus the likes of Rogue/Mage/x and various other comps that like to train the Shadowpriest. Synergizes well with Fade glyph, for 20% damage reduction on demand.

- Night Elf

Night Elves are the best when it comes to openers/defensive stealthing. Spectral Guising into a Shadowmeld provides both a decent offensive and defensive option. I've had trouble Shadowmelding stuff on beta, but it's still there, too, allowing a skilled Shadow Priest to avoid a CC altogether.

- Gnome

Gnomes and their Escape Artist are a decent option, however nothing overly interesting.

- Draenei

They have a HoT that heals for 20% health over 5 seconds, on a 3 minute cooldown. Situational at best.

- Worgen

Not really worth mentioning, as their racial is something you most likely already have as a talent ( Angelic Feathers ). It is however, very decent if you're using Phantasm.

Horde Priest races :

- Undead

A classic choice, but one of the worst choices as it stands on beta. With Will of the Forsaken nerfed to 3 minute cooldown, and with Fear effects not being as prevalent in WoD, it gets easily outshadowed by other choices. Still, a decent choice, and a minor bonus being that Touch of Grave can proc off Multistrike procs.

Best choice out of Horde races at the moment. Not only do you recieve passive 1% crit extra, but you also get Arcane Torrent, a AOE silence, which by the way, is one of four Silence effects still in the game - Silence, Garrote, Strangulate, and Arcane Torrent

- Tauren

Warstomp is decent, but nothing special. Not worth mentioning.

- Goblin

Second best Horde option, tied together with Trolls. Rocket Jump is insanely useful, especially in the melee oriented game that is WoD.

Neutral :

- Pandaren

They have a CC that DRs with almost everything in the game now. Not a viable choice.

- Tremor totem got changed. Shamans can no longer drop it while Feared, and are now required to drop it before you Fear. This will create ( boring or interesting, we'll see ) mind games, but the end result is clear - if you land a Fear, you've landed it.

- Mages can no longer Deep Freeze you and deal damage to you while you're stunned. They can however Frostjaw or Ice Nova you instead, providing a similar effect. They also do not have a silence component on Counterspell, allowing you to immediately start casting Mind Spike after being interrupted by Counterspell.

- Warriors have lost Stun component on their Charge, allowing them to Charge-Pummel us ( which can sometimes be worse than being simply stunned, as it disallows use of Dispersion )

- Prayer of Mending now has charges, and acts as a dispel protection on the target you're trying to dispel

- Monks don't blanket silence you anymore when they interrupt you

- Death Knights are no longer Undead when they Lichborne, which means that you can't Shackle them anymore. Mixed feelings about this.

- pulling yourself to a target via Glyph of Renewed Faith apparently breaks stealth openers from Ferals and Rogues. Managed to replicate it a few times, seems quite useful

- as I've already mentioned, Shadow lost its mana regeneration tools ( unless you're playing with a Mindbender ), and in return had its passive mana regen boosted so much that you don't really need to worry about mana at all anymore in most situations. However, be VERY careful if you drop form and start spamming Flash Heal, this CAN make you OOM very fast, and now you have no way to recover outside of waiting for mana regen to kick in, or drinking. Spamming Power Word: Shield and Dispel Magic can also make a dent in your mana bar, but nothing too significant.

- Psychic Scream now belongs to DISORIENT DR category, which means it now DRs with a lot of other CC it didn't previously DR with; notably with Cyclone, killing ( or crippling ) Shadow Priest/Resto Druid synergy

TIER 2 ( aka, can work against SOME of the GOD/TIER 1 comps, but climbing the ladder might be super super hard because general meta of comps is not in your favour - basically unless you're the type of player who doesn't need to read this guide, don't expect success ) :

On level 100, enchants and gems are a scarce resource. In WoD you'll be able to enchant necks, rings and weapons. I haven't come across of a way to enchant other pieces of equipment, but I haven't explored beta outside of arena. However from what I've heard - that's all there is to it. All the lower level enchants have been prohibited from being used on higher level equipment.

As for gemming, you have zero gem slots.

Professions also play no role whatsoever, because none of them have any combat-related perks anymore ( only exception being Engineering, but none of the Engineering toys work inside arena ).

Edit : 12/04/2015 ( patch 6.1.2 ): Versatility on Neck/Back/Rings, Mastery on weapon. I've tried haste enchants, they're dogshit. Mastery gives you the most damage, but we don't really need more damage. Just roll with Versatility on offpieces, it's easily the best out of mediocre options.

- all in one Shadowfiend macro. What this does is directs your Shadowfiend's attacks to the target you're attacking, and casts Shadowcrawl in case he acts stupid and doesn't use it himself ( :) ).

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/cast [target=party1] Power Word: Shield

- Casts PW: S on your first party member. Replace party1 with party2 and etc to cast it on other targets

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/cast [target=NAME] Fear Ward

- Replace NAME with whatever name of the person you want Fear Warded.

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/cancelaura Dispersion

- I use this when I need to cancel Dispersion. Especially now, when it no longer restores mana, you shouldn't sit in it full duration unless you have to. Use it when it's important, cancel it when the trouble expired.

I'm of opinion that keybindings do not really matter, as every person should make up their own comfortable ones. However, too many people get lost when they're trying to set up an optimal setup when learning a new class, so I'm going to post my keybindings below for such usage. I'm in no way saying this is the optimal way to play a Shadow Priest, as I've already previously stated - keybindings don't matter, but this is what works for me, and some of you might find it useful.

This is very much so work in the progress, and I'll keep updating it whenever something new pops up. As for Shadow in WoD, I feel we're in a very decent spot. We're both fun to play, and very useful in arena - my only annoyance is Blizzard's shameless placement of Psychic Scream into Talents, thus pidgeonholing Priests into speccing Psychic Scream ( and not only that, it's been nerfed heavily as well ). Outside of that, I feel like they've done a very good job with the spec. Clarity of Power introduced a fun gameplay element that allows us to alleviate all the pressure melee classes had over us in the past, and unlike in MoP, we have steady Shadow Orb generation even while trained, and our mana isn't an issue anymore.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask, both via PM or here.

most people with a problem with boosting are too shit / too unknown to get regular boosts. Hence why they don't like it, people want what they can't have. Most players dont give two shits about whether or not duelist jimmy gets his title cause some big bad r1 player beat him one game at 2400 mmr

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

The moment a person actually starts to tolerate you and maybe think that you'll turn out alright in the end, you write shit like this. You're a lost fucking cause, aren't you ? Take it from someone who did more boosting than you've had chance to during your little Ele Shaman escapade - if you're doing it, at least don't be a dick about it. You can't honestly believe boosting is good for this game ?

Here's a personality trait I had before. I used to be extremely hostile towards some players ( who I guess you could call "new kids on the block" ) who got Gladiator/R1 in the past, mostly because I didn't deem them worthy enough ( If I'm > them, why did they get reward >= mine ? )

But even though I was bitter towards them, I've ACCEPTED them. And do you know why ? BECAUSE those players are what keeps ARENA alive.

We have two players, Bob and Murray.

Bob is a guy with 3000 arena games in this season, Bob is a solid Duelist, but he might have a shot at Gladiator in 1000ish more games.

Bob gets at the exact rating the cutoff is at. Murray's boost knocks Bob out. Murray walks around with the title, while Bob, a legitimate player who probably would've continued playing arena if not for scumbags, is left in dirt.

Sure, Bob can try next season, and he probably will, but he's been fucked out of a title he worked really hard for, while on another hand, Murray just got his Glad achievement, title and mount, and will probably never participate in arena again at all.

TL;DR - anyone who supports boosting in any way is fucking retarded. Timeline of events :

- R1/Gladiator means something, is a prestigious thing to acquire in this game.

- more people start playing arena

- Gladiator cutoffs lower themselves each season ( not proportional to skill )

- morons start sharing R1 titles ( while claiming they don't care about them, interestingly enough they care about them so much they're willing to scout 24/7 and play hard to land at share rating )

- "who gives a shit about this game omfg, new players suck, boosting cheating etc"

You're all fucking hypocrites, and more importantly, morons. Saying you give a shit about a pixelated title doesn't make you less of a person, and taking MASSIVE shits on the thing you love playing for the sake of "reputation" is basically taking shits on yourself. "Yeah man, my hobby totally blows, I'd rather eat hot horse shit than do it, but I'm still doing it". Bunch of imbeciles.

A lot of the caster teams these days (LSD, god comp) literally will go defensive and piller faster then they ever had before. It's not fun to play against

Too many casters will instantly run back the second they are touched if they don't have the means to go offensive. They'd rather just dick around for a minute or so until they are ready to go again. I think the significant amount of 1minute cds is the biggest cause of this. NS, orb, shammy wall, barkskin, ect. It's like cata shadowdance where every defensive was a 2minute cd, and but dance was only a minute. Except now an entire team has it

It's really bad when you're playing any comp with a melee. It either forces your entire team to commit and push, or pull back letting them get their short CDs back up.

It's just frustrating, nothing else to it

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You can rest assured, back in TBC it was the same, just back then there wasn't twitch

TBC had a lot more gaps in the skill floor. There was much more room to mess things up, but the shear amount of RNG bullshit that existed really offset that. Game was just as bad back then, just different things to bitch about

Hello, I have been getting huge amount of ingame whispers to make a guide, I do not see myself as a top player I just want to give something back to the community. This might only be helpful for a few people but I remember when I just started doing pvp and being hungry for info/guides etc. and how thankful I was for decent-top players writing informative guides so here goes.

Talents

For the first tier I play PoM against every comp, even after the nerf in 5.2 to PoM + RoF it is still really useful, and in my opinion better than Blazing Speed against most setups. I still play it with RoF because of Alter time, for the PoM + Alter time - Polymorph on the healer - Alter time back - and RoF dps, Stampede or w/e. Even against Thugcleaves, PHD's, and other melee cleaves that train me I play PoM because you can get some momentum by yourself by getting the instant cc on the healer and RoF'ing yourself.

Second tier: Flameglow. I use it against almost every team, it makes you almost unkillable against UA Warlocks and Boomkins and it's way better than Ice Barrier just because alot of classes can dispell it and people do it so it most of the time just gets wasted. If you play with a Resto Druid or a Disc Priest Ice Barrier is definetly an option because of all the HoTs/Grace stacks it makes it rather hard to dispel it.

Third tier: Ring of Frost, still an amazing ability together with PoM even after the nerf. Frostjaw is pretty good too, though I have not played with it I have faced Mages who did and done well with it.

Fourth tier: Cold Snap is an obvious choice here, heals you for 30 % of your hp can be used in any cc, stun and even inside your current block. And resets CD of CoC, Frost Nova, and Ice Block.

Fifth tier: Most important and most controversial tier, Nether Tempest or Frost bomb? I take Nether tempest for most comps I believe it's a must-have in comps like MLS and Boomkin Mage Disc where you try to do as much dmg as possible, I play it every game as RMP/Shatreeplay except against PHD's/ KFC's/other heavy melee comps that train my Priest I play Frost Bomb just because if you're left alone with Frost Bomb you can easily 100-0 a target with a blanket CS on the healer. The general way you wanna do it with Frost Bomb is to Polymorph a target to force a dispel and then Frost Bomb your kill target and go for burst without them having a dispel and allowing you to time a Frostbolt + Ice Lance shatter as the Frost Bomb explodes.

Sixth tier: Incanter's Ward is the obvious choice for PvP. I see alot of Mages completely waste this talent and just pop it randomly as if it was just an absorb. But I don't think people fully utilize this ability, it's a 30 % dmg buff that you can get very easily every time you want to swap. It's a MASSIVE damage buff and the passive of this ability is ridiculous aswell 6 % passive dmg increase + 65 % mana regen increase when it's not on cooldown + when it gets broken you get 18 % of your mana. I usually pop this before I do a hard as RMP or any comp really. I use it if there is alot of people bunched up and I can Frozen Orb them all. Remember, MoP playstyle is all about doing the most dmg, the more dmg you can pump out as a Mage the more succesful you are going to be, I can guarentee you that. So utilizing your spells the best you can, will increase your dmg and you will do way better in arena.

Glyphs

I play with Glyph of Ice Lance. Glyph of Polymorph. Glyph of Armors.
I play without Glyph of Ice Lance as RMP I usually play Glyph of Evocation instead. I would like to point out Glyph of Remove Curse, I don't see alot of Mage's using this glyph. It's absolutely insane against Warlock teams, it gives you a 10 % dmg buff for 10 seconds every time you dispell a curse, so basicly against a Warlock team you could in theory have 100 % uptime on this buff since your Decurse is only on a 8 sec CD and the Buff lasts for 10 secs.

My Macros

Counterspell Arena 1-2-3

I think CS 1-3 is a must-have as a Mage, you can CS Mage openers with it out of Invis. You can CS Night Elf healers out of Shadowmeld when they are in high pressure situations and just need to get a Shadowmeld heal off and this can easily win you games. + Counterspelling crucial CC's or high burst casts without having to waste time swapping your Focus or Target.

Just like you expect your healer to dispel your CC quickly when you are going for kills, the same goes for your healer/partner when they are in a high pressure situation or going for kills and they get hexed it can easily lose you games if you are too slow with decursing your partners. And spam decursing yourself from Curse of Agony's and Doom's when you've got spare globals helps your healer out a ton!

/cast [target=nóliferqt] remove curse

Target and Focus Arena 1-2-3

Target and Focus Arena 1-2-3 is a must-have especially as a Mage as you'll be having to swap focus/target alot when you're going for double CC and depending on if you're going offensive or defensive you'll be swapping focus between healer and the dps for spam Polymorphs or Counterspelling the healer.

Comps that you can play as a Mage and how I think they should be played

UA Lock, Frost Mage, Resto Shaman, as MLS I like to go full intellect and just spam damage, with instant CC on healers and coordinating Deep Freeze> into Fears with my Warlock. I rarely ever go for Polymorphs I just spam dmg, deep into fear and a Counterspell out of it.

Boomkin Mage Disc, this comp is a healer killer generally you want to PvE and just wait for Solar Beam and Frozen Orb and cyclone one dps fear the other and deep beam the healer with a RoF around and Frozen orb and just pump out as much dmg as you can. This comp struggles against Resto Druid teams though, but I found that you can easily kill resto druids with this comp if you make a good deep beam swap with no hots they can easily die through Barkskin.

Shatreeplay/Spriest Mage Resto Druid/Resto Shaman, this comp is the best Mage comp at the moment. You can pretty much win every team as Shatreeplay you generally want to wait for your priest to have 3 orbs and a silence and you Deep Freeze Frozen Orb a target with 3x orbs and silence the healer with a Cyclone or a fear on the third. Against most Resto Shaman teams you want to make swaps to the Shaman the same way, even if they have got trinket and cooldowns they can die anyway. Deeping with 3 orbs and a Frozen Orb they'll have to trinket, you can silence of that into a dr'ed counterspell and kill them in it.

Elemental Shaman Mage Disc, one of my favourite comps this expansion the amount of burst this comp has got is absolutely insane. You can pretty much 100-0 a target in a single Deep Freeze with a blanket or NS hex on the healer, if you clean the target beforehand. If you can sync up damage with your Elemental Shaman this comp can win anything. Even though your Elemental Shaman doesnt have that many defensives and is very trainable it leaves you (the Mage) alone to do whatever you want, you can setup double CC by yourself and allowing your Elemental Shaman to cast a bit can easily get you kills in Deep Freezes.

I would have explained how I use every ability but I simply don't have the time at the moment. If I do make another guide later on, I will include that for sure. But if you would like to know, you should head over to Xandyn's Cataclysm guide it's outdated for most spells but I think it's an amazing guide even though it's from Cataclysm, you can learn a bunch about how to use your spells the correct way. As I said I don't see myself as a top Mage and I'm just doing this to give something back and help some people that aren't sure which way to go as far as talents, glyphs and general playstyles as some comps.

I know there is a Conquest.Pt Catch-up system coming, and while it will help a little, I wonder why don't you make it so that when you earn 27k conquest on one char, u can buy your gear for honor, on all your alts. Maybe it would be unfair(?) somehow, but I think it would really increase activity in arenas since people could much easier gear and go arenas on alts.

***With the release of Patch 6.0 leading up to Warlords, this guide is fully out-of-date, a full re-write is in progress***

Eldacar's Guide to PVP Power & Resilience

Hello PVP'ers! For those of you that don't know me I go by Eldacar and I am a long time PVP'er and PVP Theorycrafter, as well as a member of Blizzard's forum MVP program. I write PVP focused guides and do everything I can to help the PVP community grow and prosper, which is why I wrote this PVP Stats Guide. You can find me on twitter as @EldacarJS and on the US Official Forums as Eldacar@Boulderfist. This guide goes into a lot of detail and gets into some complex stuff in a few places, if you have questions leave them in the comments and I will answer them as best I can.

Summary & Key Points:
-Resilience has linear returns, +100 Resilience rating increases your effective health by 1.235% relative to displayed health.
-PVP Power has linear returns, +400 PVP Power gives you +1% damage or healing in PVP (before spec modifiers).
-The latest season's PVP gear is generally the best gear for instanced PVP, however in world PVP players with heroic raiding gear will have an advantage.
-PVP Power does not cancel out a target's Resilience but it will still help you hit them or heal them harder.
-It is generally ineffective to gem for PVP Power, gemming for primary stats is more effective in most cases.
-The PVP trinket set bonus offers roughly 8.25% effective damage reduction and will always increase your effective health by 32.11% of your displayed health.

Everyone reading this likely already has at least a general understanding of how Resilience works; its fundamental purpose is to provide percentage based damage reduction against all damage done by players, the more Resilience you have the less damage you take. That is fairly straightforward and easy to understand; however understanding how the stat scales and all the factors at work is more complicated. There are three main factors that go into how Resilience scales, first is the exponential returns of percentage based damage reduction, second is the diminishing returns of Resilience rating, and third is the baseline 72% reduction that all players have in PVP.

Section 1A - The Exponential Returns of Damage Reduction

The effects of percentage based damage reduction scale exponentially, the more you have the more valuable additional damage reduction becomes. For example, let's say someone is hitting you for 100 damage, if you have 0% damage reduction and you add 1% that 100 damage is reduced to 99 damage, a 1% effective reduction. However if you already have 90% damage reduction and you add another 1% that 100 base damage which was already reduced to 10 is now further reduced to 9. That change in incoming damage from 10 to 9 is a 10% reduction in actual damage taken by adding just 1% of damage reduction.

Here is a graph that shows how the value of damage reduction increases as you gain more:

As you can see at 50% damage reduction additional reduction is worth twice as much as normal, at 90% its worth ten times as much as normal. This kind of scaling isn't unique to Resilience, armor and any other percentage based damage reduction (even in other games) function the same way. Games control the overall scaling of these mechanics by manipulating how fast you are awarded the damage reduction.

One additional note on this, in World of Warcraft different damage reduction mechanics have multiplicative relationships NOT additive, what that means is that the value scaling for any one of these mechanics is only accurate within that one mechanic. At 50% damage reduction from Resilience an extra 1% from Resilience is effectively worth 2%, however none of this has any bearing on the value of additional damage reduction from say armor, that scales totally independently but in a similar fashion. Because these defensive stats scale independently from each other and have a multiplicative relationship they can each be examined and valued independently.

Section 1B - The Diminishing Returns of Resilience Rating

For Resilience the main factor that counters the exponential scaling of percentage based damage reduction is the diminishing returns on Resilience rating. The more Resilience rating you have the less damage reduction is awarded by each additional point of rating, as shown in the graph below. This is how Blizzard controls the overall scaling of Resilience as a whole, and it is what they change when they want to alter the way Resilience scales.

As you can see in the graph, the amount of additional damage reduction provided by additional Resilience gradually declines as Resilience rating increases.

Section 1C - Baseline PVP Damage Reduction

Mists of Pandaria added a new factor to the way Resilience scales, the baseline PVP damage reduction that all players have which was increased from 65% to 72% in patch 5.4. What this has effectively done is significantly shrink the damage reduction gap between under geared players and fully geared players. This combined with the limited availability of Resilience on gear and through gems has significantly lessened the impact of resilience as a stat at level 90. The difference in damage reduction between a fresh level 90 and someone in the best possible pvp gear is now relatively small.

Section 1D - Effective Health

Effective Health (or EH) is perhaps the most critical metric for measuring survivability. Effective health is essentially how much pre-mitigated damage it takes to kill you. If you have 100k health and 0% damage reduction your effective health is just that same 100k. However if you have 100k health and 50% damage reduction your effective health is 200k, because someone would need to do the equivalent of 200k pre-mitigaged damage to kill you.

It is also important to note that more than just increasing the size of your effective health pool, damage reduction also increases the relative effectiveness of heals on you. With 50% damage reduction a 1k heal actually restores 2k of effective health. This is one of the reasons why increasing your effective health through damage reduction is better than increasing your effective health an equivalent amount through raw stamina.

Effective health is really the stat that best indicates the value you are getting from Resilience and it is the stat you need to be paying attention to when evaluating the survivability of your character. Effective health is displayed on the graphs below as a percentage relative to displayed health, an effective health (EH) value of 150% for a player with a 100k displayed health pool would mean that player has an effective health from just Resilience of 150k. When you factor in other effects like armor and damage reduction from talents your EH is higher but we are just looking at Resilience by itself here.

Looking at effective health over the full scale of resilience as shown below illustrates how the exponential returns of damage reduction and the diminishing returns of Resilience rating combine to cancel each other out and generate perfectly linear returns.

As you can see the effective health returns of resilience are perfectly linear, adding 100 Resilience rating will always increase your effective health by 1.235% relative to your displayed health.

Section 1E - The Full Scale of Resilience

This next graph brings it all together displaying both the scaling of damage reduction and effective health based on Resilience rating at level 90 in patch 5.4.

This graph should drive home once again that although the damage reduction you get from additional Resilience diminishes the more you get your effective health continues in a linear fashion anyway thanks to the increasing relative value of that damage reduction.

Section 1F - Resilience on Items

At this point you may be thinking "I want to get as much resilience as possible and become totally unkillable!" which sounds great, but unfortunately it is a bit impractical. Although there is no Resilience cap you are extremely limited in the amount of resilience you can get in game on current season items. Most fully geared players will have around 3375, which is what you get from the PVP trinket set bonus and the PVP meta gem. The lack of resilience on gear is not a big issue because currently a player with nothing but the baseline 72% reduction already has 357% effective health, which is more than most fully geared players had at the end of Cataclysm.

For those of you contemplating using a PVE trinket or two here are some facts to help you make your decision. The 2600 Resilience offered by the PVP trinket set bonus provides roughly 2.31% additional damage reduction from baseline, which is about 8.25% effective damage reduction after factoring in the value scaling. Furthermore the set bonus will always increase your effective health by 32.11% relative to displayed health, so if you are currently at baseline you would go from 357% EH to 389% EH.

Section 2 - PVP Power

PVP Power is a relatively new stat introduced to the game in Mists of Pandaria which acts as the offensive compliment to Resilience. The idea behind this new stat is to encourage players to use PVP gear in PVP by putting major PVP-only offensive gains onto PVP gear (or in the case of healers, healing gains). PVP Power increases all damage done to players (under all circumstances), and healing done (while outside PVE-instances), by a percentage that increases based on how much PVP Power rating you have. The amount of each bonus you get is also dependent on your class and spec.

-Healing specs receive 100% of the healing bonus but 0% of the damage bonus
-All other specs receive 100% of the damage bonus and a partial healing bonus depending on class.
-Damage specs for Druids, Monks, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans receive a 70% healing bonus.
-All other specializations and classes (including tanking) receive a 40% bonus to healing from PvP Power.

PVP Power is currently the primary differentiator between PVP gear and PVE gear. It is a "free" stat on PVP gear, meaning it is not factored into the item's stat budget. As a result when comparing PVP items to PVE items of the same item level all the general-purpose stats should be equivalent but the PVP gear will have PVP Power on it as well making it a better choice for PVP. This fact is particularly important due to the presence of item level limits in all instanced PVP. The item level limits change with each season, but their purpose is to limit the item level of PVE gear to be equal to or lower than the item level of the current season's PVP gear. These two factors together generally ensure that the current season's PVP gear is always the best gear for instanced PVP. However the item level limits do not function in the open world, so in world PVP a player in the latest heroic raiding gear will likely (and unfortunately) have a large gear advantage.

Section 2A - The Absolute vs Relative Returns of PVP Power

PVP Power's scaling is very straight forward; it has linear returns when looking at it in an absolute sense, adding 400 PVP Power will always give you another +1% damage or healing in PVP depending on your spec. So every additional point of PVP Power will increase your damage/healing by the same amount. However I have seen some players around the forums describing PVP Power as having diminishing returns, and they are correct to an extent.

If you evaluate the returns of PVP Power in a relative sense it does have diminishing returns, going from 0%-1% will give you the same absolute damage increase as going from 30-31%, but in the latter case that damage increase is smaller relative to the damage you are already doing. Virtually everything in the game operates the same way. Think about primary stats for example; +3000 strength would give a warrior a pretty nice bump in damage right now. However if Blizzard said "Hey we like you random warrior!" and bumped their strength up to 100,000 then that +3000 strength would suddenly be worth a lot less to them even though it would still increase their damage by the same amount. The reality is that in order for a stat to offer you consistent relative gains as you gear up the stat would need to have increasing absolute returns, in other words it would need to give you more and more damage or healing the more of it you got. (For more info on absolute vs relative valuation see Appendix A)

Now it is time to look at the actual scaling of PVP power, which is shown in the graph below.

As shown in this graph PVP Power's returns are perfectly linear. You gain either +1% damage or healing for every 400 PVP Power you have, this is also the “baseline” upon which the reduced healing bonuses for non-healing spec are based. The red line shows the healing bonus for hybrids (70% of baseline), and the yellow line shows the healing bonus for everyone else (40% of baseline).

Section 2B - PVP Power's Interaction with Resilience

The most common misconception that most players seem to have about PVP Power is that it acts as a kind of "Resilience Penetration" which counteracts the target's damage reduction 1 for 1, that is simply not true. PVP Power increases your damage by the percentage shown in your stat panel, it always increases it by that same amount regardless of how much damage reduction the target has. Your outgoing damage is calculated first, then the target's damage reduction mitigates that damage according to their stats.

Take for example a warrior who's swing always does 100 damage in PVE. This warrior gets a +50% damage increase from PVP Power in PVP, so that 100 damage get's increased to 150 damage in PVP. This warrior has now decided to attack a paladin that looked at him the wrong way. Lets say the paladin has +50% damage reduction; so when the warrior's 150 damage hits him it is reduced to down to 75. That is how PVP Power and Resilience interact, the outgoing damage is boosted up by PVP Power, then the total incoming damage is mitigated down by Resilience.

Section 3 - Gemming for PVP

One of the most popular questions I get is "What should I gem for?" Unfortunately I cannot provide a clear cut answer to that question. The answer is dependent on your gear level, class, spec, play style and more. My recommendation is to check how the pros of your class/spec are gemming, and then experiment to see what works best for your personal play style. However I will say that it is typically ineffective to gem PVP Power at level 90, gemming primary stats is generally more effective for damage or healing.

Choosing the best gem for survivability is significantly more complicated. Stamina gems will almost always provide you with more effective health, but Resilience gems don't lag too far behind in the effective health they add. Additionally Resilience gems scale up in value proportional to the amount of healing you receive because they increase the amount of effective health restored by that healing. For now I recommend gemming for resilience if you are looking to increase your survivability, but I will look at this topic in more depth in a future guide.

Section 4 - Closing Thoughts and Remarks

I hope that this guide has been illuminating for everyone that has taken the time to read it, I have tried to provide as much accurate and detailed information as possible about the way these stats work. If you have questions about these stats or about anything written here feel free to ask and I will do my best to get you an answer.

I error checked this guide many times however I am still human, so if you believe you see an error please let know and I will look into it. I also want to make it clear that although I am a member of Blizzard's Forum MVP program I am NOT a Blizzard employee and nothing in this guide is based on any kind of inside information. All the data in this guide was all generated based on direct in-game observation and calculations based on that observed data.

General Notes
-This guide is written for level 90 players, the numbers are different at lower levels
-This guide just underwent a major update and revision, if you notice a typo please let me know!
-Some of the graph types from previous versions of the guide have been removed to reduce the complexity of the guide, but may return in the future.

Section 5 - Appendices

This is some additional information about some of the ideas, concepts, and data discussed in this guide. Additional appendices may be added over time as needed.

Appendix A - Valuation and Frame of Reference

Absolute valuation compares numbers based on addition and subtraction, IE going from 30% damage reduction to 60% damage reduction is an absolute gain of 30%. Relative valuation compares numbers using ratios, IE going from 30% damage reduction to 60% damage reduction is a relative gain of 100%. Why is this important? Because taking the example a step further, going from 60% to 90% is an absolute gain of 30%, exactly the same as before, but it is a relative gain of 50%, half as much as before. So if this trend were to continue, it would signify linear absolute returns but diminishing relative returns. This guide primarily uses absolute valuation because it is much easier to understand and work with when comparing a large number of data points to a common baseline.

Frame of reference is another critical concept for evaluating data, particularly when most of the data is in percentages. There are two basic methods that can be used to evaluate a string of data points; constant frame of reference, or progressive frame of reference. Constant frame of reference uses one common baseline value as a reference point, every data point is compared to that baseline. In contrast a progressive frame of reference compares each data point to the data point before it. Take for example this set of data points: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. On a graph using a constant frame of reference they would be displayed as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (all data points were compared to a baseline of 0). However on a graph using a progressive frame of reference they would be displayed as 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 (each data point was 1 larger than the number before it).

Using a constant frame of reference makes it much easier to evaluate the actual changes in the progression of a data set, where as using a relative frame of reference allows you to better evaluate changes in the rate of change over the progression of a data set. Since we are more interested in the actual changes than the rate of change when viewing the scaling of stats I chose to use a constant frame of reference for the graphs in this guide.

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